Burial in the River

In 1911, on Frost's Descent, the fog over the canal was so thick you could wring water from it. The boy Chen Du followed his father, rowing a boat toward the nameless corpse of an infant. This was his fate as a ferryman of the dead: to prepare the bodies of souls who died far from home on the canal, soothe their spirits, and ferry them across the River of the Dead. One century, one canal, and one man who guarded the dignity of the dead. From the twilight of the late Qing to the dawn of the new century, Chen Du personally laid to rest soldiers from the warlord conflicts, patriots who fell in the War of Resistance, and the nameless people swallowed up by turbulent times. He was like a silent bridge, ferrying millions of souls across. The storms of history tore his family apart time and again, yet never broke the ark he guarded within his heart. River Burial is no elegy to suffering, but an epic about dignity. With prose of utmost restraint, it depicts emotions of overwhelming intensity. Behind the grand sweep of history, it lets us see the true foundation that allows civilization to endure: the light of humanity in the humble and silent, a light that never goes out.